New Firefox preferences UI lands in Nightly build

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Mozilla has big plans for the Firefox interface, and they’re beginning to come together in the Nightly builds of Firefox 15. No, it’s not the massive theme overhaul you’ve seen previously that will one day unify Firefox’s look on all platforms. It’s a more humble reworking of the Firefox Options screens.

Rather than being displayed in a pop-up program window on your machine, the settings tabs will soon open inside a new tab — just like the re-tooled version of the add-ons manager. Click one of the icons in the list, and the tab refreshes with the pertinent settings. Navigation buttons will appear at the top so that you can return to the main Options page and tinker with other settings. It’s still a work in progress, and not everything has been converted yet. The certificate manager, for example, remains a native application window for the moment. It will no doubt be converted to an in-tab screen, too.

Chrome users have already witnessed a change just like this. When Google launched their browser, settings were handled outside the active browser window. Today, they’re managed within a tab. It’s a natural evolution for a cross-platform browser, so it’s not a surprise to see Mozilla moving in this direction. By moving external application windows back inside Firefox, it will be easier for Mozilla to maintain a consistent user experience whether a user is running OS X, Windows 8, or Linux. It should also help simplify development, since there won’t be as many concerns about whether a change to the options screens will cause breakage on a single OS.

If you’d like to check out the new screens yourself, grab a copy of the Firefox Nightly build and head to about:config. Search for InContent, toggle the preference to enabled, and restart the browser. You’ll then see an Options tab when you call it from the Firefox menu in the top left.